


say you're happy now (once more, with feeling)

by bargalaxies



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 17:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15029444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bargalaxies/pseuds/bargalaxies
Summary: It wasn’t anything that she’d taken too much note of, at first — the wholeKorra leaving at eleven o’clock p.m. and only returning at some ridiculous time between post-midnight and pre-dawnthing. Though the first day she saw it happening, Asami had given Korra the entire rundown on venturing out into Sunnydale after dark: it’s super dangerous here at night, the death rate is extremely high, and you probably shouldn’t go out after nine unless you want to die. Korra had laughed openly at her last remark, patted Asami on the shoulder, and said, still smiling, “I promise I won’t die.”





	say you're happy now (once more, with feeling)

**Author's Note:**

> ok so. bits and pieces of this au have been floating around in my docs since around late 2015. it was intended to be posted as a one-shot, but i figured since it was taking This Long to like...actually finish it...i'd just post the beginning parts now. also this world doesn't have enough buffy AUs, which i find a travesty. anyway i'm too lazy to edit anything so like here's around 5.5k words of (cute?) korrasami nonsense

It wasn’t anything that she’d taken too much note of, at first — the whole _Korra leaving at eleven o’clock p.m. and only returning at some ridiculous time between post-midnight and pre-dawn_ thing. Though the first day she saw it happening, Asami had given Korra the entire rundown on venturing out into Sunnydale after dark: it’s super dangerous here at night, the death rate is extremely high, and you probably shouldn’t go out after nine unless you want to die. Korra had laughed openly at her last remark, patted Asami on the shoulder, and said, still smiling, “I promise I won’t die.”

So in the end, Asami just assumed that it was maybe a much-needed late-night job that had Korra hightailing out of the apartment every night with a chocolate chip bagel stuffed in her mouth, one arm stuck into the wrong sleeve of a bomber jacket as she tried in vain to get the other one in, and what seemed like strangely small stakes bopping in and out of the open mouth of a duffel bag as their owner half-ran, half-tripped out the door. Maybe she was a contractor who built very little fences? Maybe she had an uptight boss who’d rail into her if she arrived a second late to whatever it was she did? Maybe she wanted to leave in time to drive to the graveyard so she could stake vampires?

…And alright, maybe those were all ridiculous assumptions to make, especially the last one, but it’s not as if she’d spent much time thinking seriously about it beyond the first week she saw it happening. She wasn’t the type to stick her nose into other people’s businesses, and wasn’t about to begin doing so now. Besides, she was usually knocked out and sleeping soundly in her bed (or on top of her desk, as it so happened sometimes) by the time Korra got back to the apartment, which meant that it was sometime after three o’clock in the morning and way too late to be thinking much about anything, anyway.

But _then_ there was that one time when Asami was up well after three in the morning around early October working on a particularly nasty physics problem set she’d so thoughtfully put off until the last minute, and Korra had come bumbling into the apartment with several nasty cuts on her face and dust all over her being. And of course Asami had gotten her requisite “oh-my-spirits-what-the-hell-happened-to-you?!” in, and Korra had gotten _her_ “it’s-not-as-bad-as-you-think-it-is!” in, but it was almost four in the morning by that point and it was really, _really_ too late to be thinking about much more than grabbing the first-aid kit in the kitchen and guiding Korra to the chair by her desk to treat the cuts the best she could. After all, it wasn’t the first time both of them had ended up in this situation.

It was the first time, however, that her patient was being aggressively uncooperative about being treated. For some reason or the other.

“Asami, I’ll be fine,” Korra kept on insisting, trying to wriggle out of Asami’s espresso-fueled grip and away from the cotton ball being brandished at her face. “Really, they’ll be gone in no time — by morning —”

“Unless you have supernatural healing abilities,” said Asami flatly, her tone tempered by exhaustion and the slightest bit of frustration arising from the fact that Korra just would _not_ sit still, “these almost definitely won’t close for at least another two or three days.” She deftly swabbed one of Korra’s cuts, eliciting a hiss of pain from the girl.

“I _do_ have supernatural healing abilities,” said Korra, now sounding a little petulant.

“Alright, Korra.” Asami sighed, chalked her roommate’s words up to the four-in-the-morning-ness of the entire situation, and finally managed to get Korra to remain in place for long enough to patch her up. She stood up when she finished, surveying the girl sitting in front of her — lower lip a little stuck out in the slightest of pouts, wispy puffs of dust falling onto the ground every time she so much as twitched, blue eyes trained on her clasped hands lying in her lap. “There, all done.”

Korra didn’t move for a few moments, but she eventually stood up, sending a heap of dust swirling over Asami’s problem sets. “Thanks, Asami,” she said, flashing her a quick but sincere smile despite having struggled so much earlier.

“It’s not a problem,” said Asami, moving over to brush what dust she could off her papers, which…surprisingly wasn’t very much. She tried again, but it clung stubbornly to the loose leaf. Despite its filmy appearance, the dust was very dense, was practically glued to her homework, and felt almost greasy when she rubbed her fingers together, which were also coated in the stuff now.

“Oh — uhh, sorry about all the dust.” Korra sounded sheepish. When Asami glanced up at her, she was rubbing the back of her neck, looking quite anxious. “It was just really — um, messy. Today. At work, I mean.”

“It’s not a problem,” Asami repeated, though she thought that if she had to rewrite her all answers and stay up for another four hours, she’d pass out from stress and aggravation and no amount of espresso ever would be able to revive her.

“I’ll just…go take a shower and help clean up,” said Korra. She still sounded very sorry, and Asami looked up from her ruined homework and mustered up the brightest smile she could and said, for the third time, “It’s really not a problem, Korra, don’t worry about it. And I can clean up by myself — this is fine.”

“Um. Okay. If you’re sure.” Korra seemed to catch onto the strained edges of Asami’s countenance and padded off to the bathroom, trailing a meandering stream of dust on her way. Her voice, muffled, came from the hallway: “But if you want any help, just give me a yell, okay?”

“It’s fine!” Asami called back. She stared at her dusty desk, then at her dusty homework that she’d undoubtedly have to redo, and then the digital clock perched besides her pencil cup, which cheerfully blinked _4:32_ at her.

Her forehead thumped against the desk, and she didn’t even care that she would probably get a lot of that strange dust caught in her hair. Amidst the sound of the shower running in the background, she muttered to herself, “This is fine.”

She and Korra hadn’t talked about what’d happened the next day, though Korra _had_ stayed in the apartment that night in what seemed to be one of her very rare off-days from work. Which Asami still didn’t ask about — didn’t ask about what kind of job Korra possibly could’ve had that entailed her coming back to the apartment with lacerations on her face and covered in oily dust, and speaking of which, Korra had taken off her bandages by that evening and there was not even a goddamn _scar_ to show that she’d been hurt there — because she really wasn’t the type of person to stick her nose into other people’s businesses. And despite her injuries, Korra hadn’t died, which was more than a lot of other people who ventured out in the wee hours of the night could say.

But.

Asami would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit curious.

 

Sunnydale, California had a 29.8 percent death rate.

Not that she had known about it when she’d first came here. Neither had her father, for that matter. Asami had no doubt that he would’ve barred her from going to UC Sunnydale if he knew, despite its world-class engineering program. Actually, she hadn’t found out until she was well into her freshman year, and even then it was by accident. She’d been reading the obituaries section in the college newspaper because she was that pressed trying to find something to do (in hindsight, she probably should’ve wondered more why a college paper dedicated a page and a half to just obituaries in every issue it released), waiting for Mako to show up so they could go to chemistry together, and a banner across the top of the first page had mentioned an uptick in Sunnydale’s death rate from 29.1 percent to 29.8 percent.

She mentioned it to Mako when he finally showed up, and he’d simply shrugged and said, totally unconcerned and blasé, “Yeah.”

“Isn’t that…kind of a high death rate?”

“I guess it is,” he said, and he _still_ looked nonchalant about the entire thing, “but if you stay inside after it’s dark, you’ll be fine.”

“Do you know why it’s so high?”

“Not really,” he said as they rounded a corner, “but as far as I can tell, most of the deaths happen during the night. So don’t go out at night. Also, the leading cause of death is ‘impalement by barbecue fork.’”

“…I’m sorry, what?” Asami couldn’t help but choke out a giggle, despite the macabre nature of the conversation. “Death by _barbecue fork?”_

“Yep,” said Mako, very seriously. He held the door leading to the lecture hall open for her, and she mumbled out her thanks. “Mostly in the neck. Crazy as it sounds, that’s what the official stats are. You can check.”

Personally, Asami found it _very_ hard to believe that a majority of 28.9 percent of the populace had tripped over themselves and stabbed themselves in the neck with a barbecue fork. But Mako wasn’t the type to pull her leg (or anyone else’s, for that matter), _and_ he was a criminal justice major. Asami knew next to nothing about criminal justice, but she figured that Sunnydale death statistics were something they would study. Maybe. Whatever.

But sure enough, when she’d checked the stats herself, “impalement by barbecue fork” was indeed the first leading cause of death in Sunnydale, followed by “homicide” and “suicide.”

And as ridiculous as it was, Asami began watching herself around barbecue forks, along with trying to make sure she finished running all errands requiring her to go outside by nine-thirty at the latest and getting a heavy deadbolt for her door. Of course, there were times when she couldn’t quite make the nine-thirty thing possible, though they were few and far in between. It might’ve just been paranoia and overcompensation, and she _knew_ she could take care of herself if caught in a sticky situation — almost two decades of self-defense lessons had given her tools and methods she could utilize — but, well. It was better to be safe than sorry. And she hadn’t died yet in the two years since, so she figured that she was at least doing something right.

 

By all accounts, Korra was a transfer student majoring in international relations from the University of Anchorage in Alaska. Word was that she used to be a pretty promising swimmer, a definite shoe-in for the U.S. Olympic team competing in Tokyo 2020. But then she’d suddenly dropped the sport just this past year, and no one knew why. She’d caused something of a buzz even before she arrived on campus — senior transfers weren’t entirely unheard of, but they were rare enough. And adding that onto Korra’s background was a surefire way to make sure that every UC Sunnydale student knew of her by the time she did arrive.

Funnily enough, it was Korra who’d answered Asami’s request for a roommate in the apartment she’d secured about five minutes off campus, though it was probably because Asami was the only one still looking. She was supposed to be living with three other randomly selected students who’d also applied to live in off-campus housing, but something had gotten messed up in whatever office handled these requests, and long story short, she was left without anyone to live with until Korra came along.

While living alone wasn’t something that Asami would have hated, it was safe to say that she wouldn’t have enjoyed it too much, either. Years spent as a child and a teenager in an enormous, oftentimes empty house after her mother had died had really done a number on her in that department. Asami loved her father, she really did, but after Yasuko Sato’s death, he had withdrawn more and more into his work, regularly taking extended business trips and leaving Asami in the care of a sitter or a maid. It happened less frequently as Asami got older, which she thought was kind of backwards, but it’d still affected her enough that she preferred to have company over as much as she possibly could. So it was with no small amount of happiness that she’d greeted Korra at the door the night she arrived, about a week before the semester was due to begin.

Her first impression of Korra was that she was bright — bright blue eyes, bright smile, and _blindingly_ white teeth. Her second was that Korra looked very —

“— Shitty — I-I mean, you’re looking…looking beat up,” Asami got out, word salad temporarily garbling her tongue. _Crap,_ she couldn’t remember the last time someone had rendered her speechless on sight, though to be fair, this time wasn’t exactly in a good way. And also, it wasn’t as if she’d expected Korra to look like she’d just gotten run over by a small trash compactor before being punched in the face by a pro boxer. Her hand remained suspended in between both their bodies in what was supposed to be a firm, introductory handshake. It sagged more like a limp lettuce leaf now. “I mean, you’re hurt? Sorry — oh my spirits, come inside —”

Korra laughed, and spirits, that was bright too — it seemed to fill the tiny foyer with its exuberance — despite the numerous cuts and scrapes and bruises on her arms and the very large, very obvious black eye marring her (very pretty, Asami absently noted) face. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she promised, hefting her suitcase over the ledge and securing the strap of a bright blue duffel bag over her shoulder. Asami hurried to help, pulling the suitcase to the side of the door and taking the duffel bag from Korra’s willing hands. She saw Korra wince minutely as she stepped over the threshold on her left foot.

 _Well, then._ She very much doubted that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but she didn’t pry, and instead closed the door behind Korra before guiding her to the nearest seat available, which happened to be her swivel chair.

“We should, ah, probably get you to the hospital…” Asami frowned, checking her watch discreetly — it was already nine twenty-three p.m., and Sunnydale General was fifteen minutes away by car on a good day. But before Asami could even think about reaching for her car keys, Korra had made her decision for her.

“No hospitals,” she’d almost immediately said, gripping Asami’s wrist in a crushingly strong grip. As in, it was _really_ strong — Asami thought that her bone was in serious danger of snapping under the amount of force being applied to it. She must’ve winced, because Korra’s eyes widened and she dropped Asami’s hand like it was a hot poker, retracting her arm so fast that it bumped against the back of the chair and sent her rolling a few inches back. “Shit — sorry, Asami, I didn’t mean to grip so hard.” She sounded a little distraught, and when Asami looked up from cradling her wrist to check if any damage had been done to it, Korra was staring at her own hands with what looked like a wild mix of anger and frustration and disbelief.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured, offering Korra a smile that she couldn’t see. “And okay. No hospitals. Here, let me just grab the first-aid kit and fix you up the best I can, okay?”

Korra was still frowning at her hands while Asami said this, but seemed to shake herself out of her stupor for long enough to flash Asami a smile. “Actually, that sounds great. Thanks for this, Asami. Really.”

It took a while to treat all of Korra’s wounds, mostly because there were just so _many_ of them. She wasn’t sure what to do with most of the bruises, so she kind of just ignored them and did her best to work around the discolored splotches. Maybe give Korra some ice, later. On many different occasions, she privately fretted to herself whether or not she was doing it right — though she’d had rudimentary medical training, she was no expert at stitching up wounds. If Korra ended up with horrible scarring because Asami had accidentally screwed up her stitches, well, even if Korra didn’t beat her up over it (which she probably wouldn’t have, given what little Asami had seen of her character in the past five minutes), she’d end up doing a fine job in that by herself. She’d just met the girl, for the spirits’ sakes.

“What were you _doing?”_ slipped out at one point, while Asami was dressing one of the smaller cuts.

Korra only chuckled, though the action didn’t reach her eyes, which remained a flat, shadowed blue. Her laugh was nervous and reedy, with something that sounded like bitterness tainting its edges. And then she said, “Just something that needed to be done.”

“…Okay.” Asami would’ve asked if she’d gotten into a fistfight, or a _knife fight,_ even. But she ended up swallowing any follow-up question. She figured that Korra would tell her if she wanted to, and given the way she’d responded to her first question, it was pretty obvious that she decidedly did not want to elaborate on exactly what she’d been involved in before she’d walked into the apartment. She cast a quick glance up at Korra, who looked like she was teetering dangerously on the edge between mulish and brooding.

“So, uh,” she said conversationally while applying a strip of medical tape, “when did you arrive in Sunnydale?”

“Hmm?” Korra blinked down at her, looking very much like a deer caught in headlights. “Oh, just about…four hours ago? Five? I was visiting a, umm, a family friend before I came here. Lost track of time. _Not_ that the family friend was the one who did this to me,” she hastily added, gesturing to herself. Asami ducked her head quickly so that Korra couldn’t see the grin forming at the expense of her rather awkward flailing. “Definitely not.”

(She finished fixing Korra up within the hour, showed her to her room, and then collapsed onto her own bed, thoroughly drained by the night’s events. The next morning, she woke up with a deep purple bruise mottling her wrist that ached sharply if she even so much as nudged it against a surface.)

Now, two months later, Asami still hadn’t ever seen Korra look as bad as when they first met, not even that time at hell o’clock in the morning. But sometimes, in between all the brashness and cocky smiles she’d come to associate with Korra, she’d see _that_ expression on her roommate’s face. The flat and mulishly brooding one, like she was perpetually unhappy with…something. Asami had made a wild conjecture and supposed that it was related with Korra’s late-night job.

And she wondered to herself, for what must’ve been the sixtieth time since she last saw Korra hightailing out of the apartment after hours, what the _hell_ it was that had her feeling like that. What it was that had caused her extensive cuts and bruises, the two times Asami even saw her coming home; forget about the perfect state she looked like the mornings after. What it was that made her keep boxes filled with tiny bottles of holy water stacked neatly in the closet along with their winter coats and jackets.

She wondered, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t worried. But she still didn’t ask, and Korra still didn’t tell. They still hung out during the afternoon, at least when they didn’t have classes, and during the weekends too. Korra really was a fun person to hang out around, after all. Opal, Bolin, and Mako all seemed to think so too, when Asami had introduced Korra to them beginning of first semester.

…Which, actually, Korra might have had a little crush on Mako. Which also might have been reciprocated from his end. She resolutely ignored the pang of… _whatever_ it was she felt that curdled acridly in her stomach whenever she thought about it.

 

When Asami had initially arrived at UC Sunnydale, she’d taken great pains to avoid becoming known campus-wide as “Hiroshi Sato’s daughter,” or the “heir to Future Industries,” for that matter. It wasn’t a matter of embarrassment or anything like that, not that she’d _be_ embarrassed by her family in the first place. It was more for practicality, and maybe because she was just the slightest bit annoyed of being remembered or identified or having things being expected her simply through the accomplishments of her famous father or his famous company. And okay, granted, maybe the last one was kind of unavoidable, but it still irked her. Even at the prep school she’d gone to before college, which had its fair share of kids with famous parents, she felt like she was constantly under the microscope in that regard by her peers and even some of her teachers.

“We’re expecting _great_ things from you,” said her academic counselor with no small amount of pride at the end of her freshman year, to which Asami had smiled at, trying to hide the sudden, crushing wave of anxiety that caused her lunch to roil uncomfortably around in her gut.

“So, Asami, I hear that your company’s got this cool summer program in New York City,” said the random junior sporting a dazzlingly fake smile while she was retrieving her calculus binder from her locker and ignoring every hint she was dropping telling him to _leave me the fuck alone, please, it’s not even my company._ Actually, there were quite a few students who Asami was pretty certain were only trying to cozy up to her in order to curry some of her favor so they could score a coveted position at the summer research program Future Industries’ labs offered specifically for high school students.

Like, Asami wasn’t even involved in the admissions process of that program, anyway. She thought that much would’ve been obvious, though that didn’t stop any of them from badgering her. They were pretty persistent, she had to give them that.

But for the most part, once she’d arrived at college, she didn’t have to deal with any of that crap. No more schmoozing, no more thinly-veiled hints about how she should one day end up becoming as great as her father and taking over Future Industries. Which, to be frank, was a huge breath of fresh air. It was nice being able to talk about the things she loved with others who also genuinely loved the same things, without any trace of duplicity in the conversation. It was nice being able to tinker with her pet projects at the university’s workshop, losing herself in the methodical nature of the process. It was nice being able to forget.

 

“Hey, you wanna go out with me tonight?”

Asami peered up at Korra from her seminar notes. The other girl smiled sunnily at her, which crooked towards the left. She was dressed in a pair of dark cargo pants, combat boots, and a dark blue top. Draped over her shoulders was a bomber jacket, the one that Asami always saw her putting on whenever she left the apartment. It seemed pretty scuffed and worn, now that she was paying a little closer attention to it. The fabric was scraped paler in some areas than others, two of the pockets had apparently lost their buttons, and there seemed to be _gashes_ torn into the material at the right shoulder that definitely weren’t supposed to be there.

“Hellooo? Earth to Asami?” Asami blinked, then tore her focus away from the ripped shoulder and back to Korra, who had taken a few steps towards her. “I’m off from work today, ’cause today’s Halloween, and Tenzin — he’s my, um, boss — Tenzin said that nothing ever happens on Halloween…well, basically, I can have the night off.”

Asami took a moment trying to piece together the words of that sentence, which just seemed a little _off_ to her. But Korra was right in that it was Halloween, which Asami had, admittedly, totally forgotten about until she’d mentioned it.

She set her pencil down onto the desk, making sure it wouldn’t roll off before she turned back to Korra. “Um, maybe. Do you have any place you want to go in particular?”

“Yeah, I think the Bronze is hosting some kind of party,” said Korra, referring to the local club that was extremely popular with the high school and college age students. Asami nodded in recognition — Bolin had texted her earlier that day asking if she wanted to come and hang out, and Asami had replied back a maybe (leaning towards no, if she was being honest). “Bolin said that he and Opal and Mako were all going tonight, and he invited me and you. Said you should come ‘for once’ if you weren’t too busy.”

“Mako’s going to the Bronze? For a Halloween party?” Asami couldn’t help but smirk to herself at the image. She’d seen Mako go maybe three times to the Bronze ever since she met him freshman year. When she asked him about it, he just frowned, furrowed his eyebrows, and said that he didn’t like the “atmosphere” of the place. Killjoy. …Then again, to be fair, she wasn’t really one to speak right now.

“I know, right?” Korra was practically _vibrating_ with glee. “It’ll be so good for him. Maybe it’ll loosen the stick that’s up his ass all the time. I mean, they got Nerf Herder as the main band on stage tonight. _And_ there’s gonna be candy and free Jell-O shots and a special half-off offer on their dark blue tortilla chip nachos.” She looked a little dreamy when she talked about the nachos.

“You mean those ones they sell with the atomic-orange–colored imitation cheese?” asked Asami, her tone wry. She chose not to comment on the free Jell-O shots, which really just sounded like a disaster in the making. She had no idea what the Bronze was thinking with that one.

Korra’s smile grew even wider, if that was at all possible. Her blue eyes shone with what could only be described as maniacal fervor. “Oh my spirits, Asami, I haven’t told you about my love affair with cheese yet? ’Cause we’ve been in a committed relationship for about, oh, only my entire damn life.” She bounced in place a little, her expression almost lit up with childish glee. “I can’t believe I’ve never talked about this before? I just love cheese so much. _Especially_ melted cheese. It’s like…it’s like a party in my mouth. Like going to heaven. A downright _transcendental_ experience. It’s practically _orgasmic.”_

“Um…wow.” Asami really didn’t know what to say to that, though she figured that she knew now what to get Korra for her birthday. Sure, cheese was great and all, but Korra was, like, taking it to a whole different level. Still, she couldn’t help but giggle at her roommate’s excitement, and even more so when Korra just flapped a dismissive hand at her. “Though, I don’t think you can call the stuff the Bronze serves with their chips ‘cheese,’ actually.”

“Whatever, it tastes like cheese,” said Korra. “So obviously, it tastes awesome. That’s all that matters. I could probably live on only it for _weeks_ …but,” she cleared her throat, “anyway, we should totally go together! Stuff ourselves on chocolate and caramel and sugar and toasted fluffernutter sandwiches and all that cheesy goodness.”

Asami just smiled at her, struggling to keep the befuddlement from her expression. Korra regarded her for a moment and then quickly tacked on, _“Orrr_ alternatively, we can just get wildly drunk and dance on top of the bar like characters in trashy romance novels do.”

Asami didn’t think that characters in trashy romance novels danced on top of the bar while wildly drunk, but she hadn’t read anything of the sort in...well, ever, so she wasn’t really one to judge. Instead, she latched onto the other part of Korra’s declaration — “Fluffernutter sandwiches?”

“Yep! Those are going to be a thing too, apparently. I dunno why, but you don’t see me complaining…what, don’t tell me that you don’t like fluffernutter sandwiches either.” Korra wrinkled her nose, as if the very concept was sacrilegious and anyone who thought such a way ought to be shaken violently and asked what must have happened in their childhood to screw them up in such a profound manner. (On second thought, she wouldn’t put Korra beyond doing such a thing.) She paused before adding, “Unless you’re, like, allergic to peanuts or don’t eat gelatin or something. Which is totally valid, you know.”

It wasn’t as if Korra had to worry about anything anyway in the end, though, because Asami had a painfully soft spot for fluffernutter sandwiches. Her mother always used to make them for her when she came back from school. But even so… “I don’t know, Korra. It’ll drag on kind of late, won’t it?”

“Well, yeah,” Korra admitted. “But you could always come back early if you wanted. And if you’re worried about, like, being attacked at night, then don’t be! I’ll protect you.” She smirked at Asami at the last phrase, cocky and brash with her hands planted firmly on her hips. “I’ve got my stakes and holy water and guns all at the ready.”

“Guns? You have guns?” _And stakes, and holy water?_ Asami passed the former two off as the other girl’s attempt at humor, but she was mildly (and by “mildly,” she meant “very”) alarmed by the mention of firearms she had no idea existed potentially lying scattered around their apartment.

Korra’s smirk only widened as she flexed.

 _Oh. Those guns._ Asami resisted the urge to palm her forehead, though she had to admit that Korra’s biceps were very impressive. Still, she couldn’t keep the wry smile from spreading across her face.

“I can take care of myself, but thanks for the offer.” She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms lightly over her chest. “I’m just…I just want to be careful, you know?”

Korra’s expression softened at that. She padded slowly over to Asami, hand twitching by her side as if to put a hand on her shoulder, though she didn’t end up doing so. “Yeah, I get it. And hey, look, if you really don’t want to come, that’s totally fine too.” She grinned. “I could try and bring back some nachos for you if you’re still up. Can’t promise they’ll still be warm by the time I get back, but it’s better than nothing, yeah?”

Asami kept her gaze on the papers on her desk in front of her. Absently played with her pencil, rocking it back and forth between her fingers. Then she looked up at Korra’s earnest expression, so warm and honest and open, blue eyes reflecting the sharp white light of the desk lamp.

“…Actually, you know what?” she heard herself say. “I could use a break right about now. I’ll come. Just give me a couple of minutes to change.”

“Wait, really? _Yes!”_ Korra fist-pumped the air, an enormous and genuine smile breaking across her face. She yanked Asami to her feet and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug before pushing her away at arm’s length, her eyes shining with excitement. “This is going to be _so_ much fun, Asami, trust me on this!” And then she drew Asami close to her again, only this time with an arm draped over her shoulders. Korra gave her an affectionate noogie, babbling about how much fun they were going to have one they arrived. Asami smiled into Korra’s muscled forearm before wriggling out of her grasp, darting to her room to pull on an outfit more appropriate for clubbing. When she came back into the main room, Korra was waiting for her, bouncing eagerly on the balls of her feet. She all but ran to Asami then and tugged her to the door like an excited puppy.

And despite herself, Asami couldn’t help but become completely affected by Korra’s infectious enthusiasm. Another smile broke out across her lips as she held Korra back just long enough to retrieve her phone and jacket, and when they stepped out the door — Korra was still babbling something about dancing and rock music and cheese — a joyously light and warm feeling blossomed in her chest. Something she didn’t think she’d truly felt in a very long time.

Happiness.


End file.
